In recent years electronic thermometers, which provide rapid and accurate readings of body temperature, have supplanted mercury thermometers in hospitals and the like. Such electronic thermometers ordinarily use a probe at the end of which is located a temperature-sensitive element, for example a thermistor. After a sterile disposable plastic cover is placed on the probe, it may be inserted into a body orifice.
In presently used instruments, the probe is detachably coupled to an isolation chamber by a cable and connector. With this arrangement, an operator can readily disconnect a probe from one chamber and connect it to another isolation chamber, thereby increasing the possibility that a rectal probe may be inserted into an oral isolation chamber, or vice versa, an undesired procedure. Because it is necessary to use two different electronic thermometers for taking oral and rectal temperatures, the inappropriate practice of switching probes and using an oral probe with a rectal isolation chamber was inadvertently encouraged.
Moreover, some prior thermometers used an external switch on the isolation chamber or housing, a distraction and a disadvantageous arrangement since the units often are left energized resulting in unnecessary battery use.